A standard piece of equipment for anyone from The Future. A backpack that lets the wearer fly by shooting jets of fire (or concentric rings of Pure Energy) out of the back, parallel to the wearer's legs. Strangely enough, nobody ever suffers Toasted Buns as a result. Nor do most ever run out of fuel, or even consume any fuel of any sort in the first place.

Great Mazinger: Great Mazinger had a red Jet Pack folded from its back, and a second Jet Pack (Big Booster) docked with it. It was grey, with wide triangular wings, and was equiped with a spike to impale Robeasts. Venus-A also had an attachable Jet Pack, right like Mazinger-Z.

In Code Geass, the Float systems used by Britannian Knightmare Frames look like Mecha-sized jet packs. The Air Glide Wing variation used by the Black Knights, and the Energy Wing system that appears later look less like jet packs, although they are much more refined.

This was clearly a retcon of the comic-book Iron Man, due to the fact that boot-only rockets would too-obviously end up failing hiliariously as shown; thus since comic-bok Iron Man already had repulsor-rays in his gauntlets, they rationalized that he could simply use them to stablize himself in flight, and avoid flipping over backwards like that when he fired his rocket-boots.

Despite the name, this was a jetpack rather than a rocket, since it was fueled by alcohol but carried no oxygen to combust it with. Here, the hero stopped Hitler from creating an army of flying Nazi stormtroopers that would conquer America — and the world.

Hell, the first time they fire it up you can see an air intake fan start to move under the housing. Everything we're shown in the movie marks the device as a Jetpack, but everyone in the movie keeps calling it a "Rocket," Even Howard Hughes who built it and presumably know the proper name.

Both Fetts have jetpacks, and both of them fail them in one way or another. Since they wear armor, it's at least justified why they never get burned.

The Star Wars Expanded Universe has a very select cadre of (non-Mandalorian) mercenaries with jetpacks, also armored. And there are several varieties of clone and stormtrooper with jetpacks, each with different appellations like jet trooper, airtrooper, and Rocket Trooper. Since at least one of those was developed for a tabletop game, the type of jetpack troopers use comes with restrictions like fuel and where it can or can't be used.

Raises Fridge Logic issues, as repulsor-field technology otherwise suggests that jetpacks are obsolete as a means of aerial propulsion. Justified by Rule of Cool and as an homage to scifi tradition. It is noted in a few places that Repulsor packs are not small, and are not efficient when they are small. Even droids that use them don't use them constantly, because it drains their batteries. And really heavy loads still use wheels or legs to support them.

Granted, Boba's is probably nostalgic, because it belonged to his father. Mandalorians as a whole are traditionalist, since they made the art of bounty hunting they don't like people taking different approaches by altering the core of their tactics (flamethrowers, wristblades and personal missiles in a world with laser everything-else).

One of the clone troopers is called Commander Cody in a homage to the original Rocketman.

J-Men Forever (1979). Rocket Jock (a re-dubbed Commando Cody) mutters constantly about the problems of using his atomic-powered jetpack, including the worry that his tailor might have forgotten to include the lead-lining, the need to hit his springboard in order to launch himself into the air, sore arches whenever he lands, his feet setting on fire, and the risk of drowning inside his full-face helmet should he get airsick.

Kick-Ass has the main character saving Hit-Girl by flying into the scene with a Jetpack with mounted Gatling Guns that she and her father bought over the internet previously and unleashing Glorious More Dakka upon the Mooks. While set to Elvis Presley singing "Glory, Glory Hallelujah".

The classic Buster Crabbe Buck Rogers serials had a jet pack strapped to the back of the eponymous hero in some of their more memorable moments.

In RoboCop 3, Murphy gets his hands on a prototype jet pack to aid him in foiling bad guys.

Gravity. An astronaut is sent hurtling into space, but fortunately another astronaut happens to be testing a Manned Maneuvering Unit (see Real Life section). As mentioned in that section however, it only has limited fuel to enable them to reach a nearby space station.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Sam Wilson (aka The Falcon) is a former USAF Pararescuer. His flight suit is basically a jetpack with wings, and it doesn't work after the wings are torn off during the final battle — Sam has to deploy a parachute to land safely.

Literature

In The Last Hero, having already established dragon-power as the motive force of the Discworld's first rocketship, Leonard of Quirm invents a device that allows one to leave the ship with a dragon strapped to one's back, in emergencies. No-one else can think of an emergency that would be worse than having a dragon strapped to one's back.

Stewart Cowley's Great Space Battles. A law enforcement officer investigates the base of a band of mutant space pirates. After they detect his presence, he activates his backpack jet pack and lifts off, barely escaping their grasp. When he returns with the authorities, the pirates are gone.

In Starship Troopers, among the many features of the Mobile Infantry's powered armor suits are Jump Jets. These don't allow for controlled flight, but do greatly increase the height and distance that the wearer can jump.

Live Action TV

Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Seeing Red": villains with jet packs. Of course, this being the nerd trio, one of them tried to fly while underneath a ceiling and knocked himself out.

Farscape. The engine room of a Peacekeeper Command Carrier is so large it requires jetpacks to conduct routine maintenance. Needless to say this leads to a mid-air jetpack fight between the protagonists and a group of Peacekeepers.

Used a few times, in the Lost in Space series. They actually filmed a stunt pilot using a Bell Rocket Belt.

The NCIS episode "Ignition" is about a murder committed over the design of a new jetpack. McGeekMcGee unsurprisingly is a huge fan and bores his co-workers to tears with trivia on rocket belts, but when the guilty party tries to make a quick getaway in one at the end even Tony and Ziva look impressed.

One episode in Dai Sentai Goggle Five features one. Which never seems to work properly, so it doesn't become a staple to the series.

The Saturday morning kid's show "Ark II" used the "jet jumper" at least once in practically every episode.

Mentioned as being part of the equipment available to the crew of Babylon 5 when Sheridan is falling to his death, after leaping from a shuttle blown up as part of an assassination attempt, but never shown.

A piece of standard equipment available to Unicorn agents in the Japanese show Giant Robot (you may know it better from its movie compilation, Voyage Into Space).

The Cat: I say let's get into the jet-powered rocket pants and Junior Birdman the hell out of here.

Kryten: An excellent and inventive suggestion, sir, with just two tiny drawbacks. A, We don't have any jet-powered rocket pants. And B, There's no such thing as jet-powered rocket pants outside the fictional serial "Robbie Rocket Pants".

The Cat: Well, that's put a crimp on an otherwise damn fine plan.

In an episode of Gilligan's Island a military jetpack lands on the island Gilligan the only one who could fly it, due to his weight. He flies it into a cloud what causes a rainstorm stopping the military search for it. Later, he tries to fly back to Hawaii but forgets to strap it on properly.

Doctor Who. In the Two-Part Episode "Dark Water" / "Death in Heaven" the Cybermen have upgraded themselves with rocket boots. When the Doctor is put on a UNIT airborne command post to handle the crisis, they have no problem following.

Pinballs

The man and the woman in the unspecified future of The Atarians are each wearing a rectangular flying pack.

In the Gilligan's Island pinball, Gilligan is wearing a jet pack, which he uses to fly over Kona the Volcano God.

In The Party Zone, Captain B. Zarr's various female followers fly around with chrome jet packs shooting energy rings.

Warhammer 40,000 is full of these. Space Marine Assault Squads, Tau Crisis Suits, Chaos Marine Raptors, Ork Storm Boys, Sisters of Battle Seraphim, Eldar Swooping Hawks, and Yeld Spyrers all have some form of jet pack. Most jump infantry without wings are examples of this trope, and even some with wings are as well.

Though most of these people are slightly more realistically set-up, Crisis suits, Assault Marines, Raptors, and Seraphim have angled thrusters so that they don't set their butts on fire, Stormboyz don't really care about safety, and Swooping Hawks use anti-gravity vanes sculpted to look like wings instead of proper jetpacks. Also, given the rules' remarks that soldiers don't have unlimited ammunition but are instead assumed to have enough to last six turns of gameplay, it is reasonable to assume that these people merely have enough fuel in their jetpacks to last a normal-length battle instead of being unlimited-fuel affairs.

The Space Marine version actually had a slightly plausible explanation for how it worked. Power from the backpack reactor was used to convert reaction mass to a superheated plasma, which was directed to launch and maneuver. This explained why the Jump Pack only allowed the user to make short hops, not full flight - it takes a short while to convert enough mass to perform the next Jump.

Monsterpocalypse's Sky Sentinel, Defender X, and Nova-ESR all wear giant jet-turbines to help them jump and fly their way across the battle maps.

Most flying models of Powered Armor use heavy jet systems mounted on the back, though the armor itself is usually hanging/pushed along from them in an upright position. Jetpacks are otherwise fairly rare on Rifts' Earth, though the Three Galaxies setting uses gravity-based versions fairly extensively.

Also noted are a set of rocket boots used to enhance jumping ability. They fire once on takeoff, and again to brake for landing. Notable in that it's also mentioned that one has to be superhumanly tough to be able to use them without breaking your legs.

Specially trained "Jump infantry" with jetpacks formed some of the least useless unarmored units in the original game, though their mission was frankly suicidal: to fly in, swarm huge mechs and hope to plant explosive charges before you were swatted like the vermin that, to the mech pilot, you resembled. Armored infantry also had jetpacks, a similar attack and a higher survival rate, but both were nearly useless in any area with clear fields of fire.

Certain BattleMechs had jump capability themselves, allowing a "Death From Above" attack on other mechs which, in the original rules, allowed EVERY ENEMY MECH within range a free shot before your mech slammed into your target mech, hopefully mashing its head, and everyone fell down.

Gadgets!. The Rocket Pack allows powered flight at a speed of 65 m.p.h. in combat and 130 m.p.h. out of combat, with a maximum flight duration of 1 hour.

Enemies. The supervillain Lazer uses one which allowed him to fly at 65 m.p.h. Interestingly it is powered by his own Endurance rather than an onboard fuel supply.

Enemies II. The supervillain Death Commando, a member of Deathstroke, has such a device that allows him to travel up to up to 40 meters before having to be re-charged (more like a jump pack).

Organization Book 2 PRIMUS and DEMON. After DEMON steals the Earth Crown of Krim from PRIMUS headquarters, a Morbane (supervillain) wearing a jet pack flies with it to the local DEMON base.

Iron Crown Enterprises' Cyberspace RPG had jet packs for police, military and corporate use. They could reach over 60 k.p.h. and were controlled by extended handgrips. Some models could be controlled through cyberware.

The Hollow Earth Expedition main rules and the supplement Secrets of the Surface World had jet packs as a possible Artifact Resource for characters. They have a speed of 100 m.p.h. If the wearer carries another person, top speed is cut in half and maneuverability is reduced.

Laserburn Sci-Fi Combat Rules (1980). In combat, jetpacks allow long, low leaps from cover to cover. They are normally used by assault troops, either for moving into close combat range or for a quick getaway. They're powered by chemical fuel cannisters.

Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game Adventure 3 Fantastic Four: Fantastic Voyages. In the adventure "Hands of the Ravager" there are three stored aboard the Skrull scout ship Kell'rr Anelle and the Kree Jon-Larr has one as well.

Fantasy Games Unlimited's Aftermath!. Rocket packs were a high-tech way of getting around before the Ruin that ended civilization. Some of them are still available for the finding by survivors.

Toon supplement Tooniversal Tour Guide, "Supertoons" setting. Toons can fly using either a Jet Pack or a Rocketpack. If you fail your skill role, get ready for a crash!

SPI's Universe. A Jet Pack is a rocket powered (solid fuel) backpack that allows flight in any type of atmosphere, including vacuum. Using one requires the Jet Pack skill, which determines speed (up to 200 km/hour) and the chance to crash.

Villains And Vigilantes. In the original main rules, Intercrime Power Infantry were said to wear jet packs with a maximum airspeed of 65 m.p.h.

Carcosa: Weird Science-Fantasy Horror Setting. Among the other high tech items, the space aliens on the planet Carcosa have jet packs.

Encounter Critical. One of the items that can be purchased is a jet pack. It allows flight at a speed of 20" (by comparison, human ground movement speed is 7") and has a 23% chance of being defective. Another item on the equipment list is a Contra-Gravity Belt that doubles the jet pack's speed. The Combat Gravbelt in the Asteroid 1618 supplement triples jet pack speed.

TSR's Marvel Super Heroes, Uncanny X-Men boxed set Adventure Book. At the end of Chapter 9 "Let the Game Begin", if the heroes don't find Arcade within 15 minutes after the end of the basketball game he will put on a jet pack and try to escape.

It Came from the Late, Late Show II adventure "Bjorn on the Bayou, or Escape from Alkatrazz XII". Alkatrazz XII is a prison planet. The cyborg warden Skrank and his bodyguard Jorj have jet packs as part of their standard equipment.

Tales of the Space Princess RPG. One example of a Super Science device is the Jet Pack. A character wearing one can fly at at a movement rate of 60 yards/10 seconds (15 m.p.h.) for 1 hour before needing to refuel.

Shadowrun supplement Paranormal Animals of Europe. In one story a shadowrunner escapes the charge of a wild minotaur when her jetpak (sic) automatically activates and lifts her off the ground out of its way.

The United States is the only country in Rocket Age to have mastered jet pack technology and keep it a closely guarded secret. The US Rocket Rangers are the only group to use them as part of their standard equipment, although Erisian 'Knight' Armor often included something similar.

Judges Guild's Wilderlands of High Fantasy (Issue N) has a plethora of relic high tech items with little description, including a "fully operational flyer harness".

Halo 2 introduced the Ranger-class Elite which were equipped for EVA with jetpacks and fully-enclosed helmets, though they fight planetside as well. Halo 3 added a class of Brutes with the same abilities.

No exaggeration there. In all Starsiege: Tribes games, the jetpack is an EXTREMELY integral piece of the gameplay. Someone in juggernaut armor can only achieve any significant height gain by standing still while the same person in scout armor is nigh unstoppable on flag runs. And then we have the skiing ability of players, which originally came by as a bug, but is explained away in-game via micro-bursts from the jets. By the way, only scout and assault armors have jetpacks; juggernaut armors have jetboots instead.

Though jetting arond too much will sooner or later attract an enemy heat-seeking missile, another thing to watch for in multiplayer.

Also important to know is that efficient use of the jetpack is key to survival, since the jetpack requires energy to use. Waste your energy, and you've wasted your manueverability, which means you can't dodge spinfusor discs and other explosive weapons. This gets a bit complicated if some of your weapons also require energy to use in exchange for never worrying about having to reload on ammo.

There are also the spiritual succesors of Tribes, such as Legions: Firefall , PlanetSide, and Global Agenda for the big hitters. Hi-Rez Studios (Global Agenda developer) is currently working on a Tribes: Universe MMO and Tribes: Ascend (a non-MMO, free-to-play FPS) after buying the IP from Instantaction.

Pirate Aerotroopers from Metroid Prime, which also go kamikaze on you after being defeated.

Rocket Knight Adventures has Sparkster, a Rocket Knight, who as the name implies is a armored knight with a rocket pack, along with a sword that creates energy slashes. It's just as awesome as it sounds.

Its Retraux cousin, Dark Void Zero, also features the use of jetpacks, although slightly more limited in scope.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas had one, and it was arguably one of the most fun vehicles in the entire game. It was also highly necessary to collect all the items on the rooftops in the Las Vegas-like city.

You eventually get one of these in Cave Story. Notably, it comes in two, mutually-exclusive forms. The Booster 0.8 can only angle its thrust straight down and is acquired in a normal playthrough. But, if you perform a bit of precision platforming, you can skip that Booster, which allows you to later acquire the Booster 2.0, which can fly in any direction and is required for the Golden Ending.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine has a slightly more realistic take on its jump packs, the thrusters are angled such that they aren't going to fry Titus' ass (and given his Powered Armor it might not do much damage anyway), and at the end of every jump pack level Tidus comments that he's out of fuel and takes it off.

You get a Jet Pack and a rocket pack in City of Heroes as a reward item for finishing a mission.

Rocket boots (and piston boots) are also an unlockable costume part, though they're purely cosmetic, only adding a special effect to existing flight powers.

Pey'j from Beyond Good & Evil also has Jet Boots, although they don't propel him very high.

In the Dragon Ball Z games, Hercule has a jetpack to fly... but from the Tenkaichi series onwards, they only get him in the air for several seconds.

Also, Mario's Rocket Nozzle in Super Mario Sunshine. It substitutes plumes of fire for a blast of boiling water.

Jetpac, of course. Not the same game as Jetpack. In Jetpac, the main character wears it.

Killzone 3 has one, though it is Awesome but Impractical. Though it is obviously useful for flying around, you can't crouch while using it, and using it to fly leaves you open to enemy fire. The Jetpack does have a machine gun, but it's surprisingly weak, considering that it's supposed to be an LMG.

In LittleBigPlanet, this is one of the powerups, and there are two versions that people can use in their levels: The Tethered Jetpack', which has a certain range that can be set by the level creator, and the Tetherless Jetpack, which has no restrictions, save for people placing Powerup Removers everywhere.

In the Pilot Wings series the "Rocket Belt" is one of the vehicles that can be piloted.

Wario has a hat version of this in Wario Land, the aptly named Jet Cap/Jet Wario, which allows him to fly forward for a certain amount of time. Underwater too apparently.

Cortex Command has nearly all units equipped with jet packs, which is a good thing, because the "realistic" physics and inability to jump makes simply walking on anything besides completely flat ground almost impossible. However, if a unit carries too much weight, the jetpack becomes nearly useless, and not all units have jetpacks. Plus, they're a little fudgy to use, and if you come down too hard, you break your legs off. Or break your body.

Losing legs and non-vital parts does mean losing weight, however, which makes it that much easier to fly.

He also uses one in Donkey Kong Country Returns, though it looks much different from the Rocketbarrel in DK64 and Brawl as it has a little rocket that comes out of a backpack to help Diddy (and Donkey Kong if he has Diddy on his back or if you combine in Co-op) float for a short while.

The Icecrown Citadel gunship battle in World of Warcraft gives players a somewhat limited form of jetpack to fool around with. They also have Rocket Boots in the game, though their intended purpose is for horizontal travel rather than vertical.

Metroid Prime 2 had an item that lets you rise up while underwater for a limited time, so it was an underwater-only jetpack.

The side-scrolling shooter Jets'n'Guns is full of jetpacked mooks, and in some levels in the Gold Edition, you have to leave your spacecraft and infiltrate an enemy base wearing a jet pack.

The alternate title for this trope is Rocket Boots, right? Well, actual rocket boots are an unlockable powerup in the Toy Story 2 game.

Metal Fatigue has these as optional flight accessories for combots. MilAgro and Neuropa have jetpacks with wings while Rimtech uses mundane jetboots. Mounting jetpack/jetboots make combots behave like aircraft when ordered to move beyond a certain distance; they can even use ranged attacks without landing and cannot be attacked via melee until they do land. Now the drawback: while flying, combots get zero armor and all hits do full damage which means bad news, as flying parts have about 20 HP which is INSANELY low. It's still the fastest form of travel, though.

The Cyborg class in Ghouls Vs Humans has a jetpack, which has limited fuel. Apart from flying, it can be used for super-jumps, or to make a rapid dodge forwards, not unlike a Flash Step.

Dead Space 2: Isaac has thrusters in his boots and shoulders. However, they only work in zero gravity. (and certain cut scenes)

Reapers in Starcraft II are Terran close-combat infantry with jetpacks and dual pistols. Their jets, actually mounted on the shoulders of their Powered Armor, don't let them outright fly, but they are very fast on the ground and can hop over cliffs.

In the Command & Conquer: Tiberium series, GDI has specialist infantry units with jetpacks in Tiberian Sun. The Zone Troopers, Zone Raiders, and Commandos in Tiberium Wars also use jetpacks, although they are for leaping rather than flying.

Thats because the Zone infantry are literal walking tanks in power armor. It is a miracle they can even leap. Commando have only light armour though. But from the strategical sense, the quick leaps are far better than howering slowly without cover.

The Jet ability in Kirby Super Star basically grants Kirby a Jet Pack. He can use this not only to fly, but to charge at enemies and fire energy pulses, and even perform an aerial throwing attack.

Fassad from Mother 3 sports a jet pack from Chapter 7 onward. Presumably this is because Fassad lost the ability to walk when he was put back together ala Humpty Dumpty after his fall from Thunder Tower. So he flies instead.

In Twilight Heroes, a hero with enough time and resources can undertake the game's biggest construction project, the Jetpack. The diagram for building it has its own page on the game's wiki. But once you complete the task, the Jetpack serves as one of the game's best forms of transport - Range 5 (meaning it can go anywhere on the map; there are very few Range 5 vehicles), flying, and without any level limit. And the only requirement to use it is the Passable Pilot skill, available in any run to any hero with five turns, 500 chips, and access to Downtown (which only takes a Moped).

Automated Simulations'Star Warrior. Depending on which method you use to create your character, you can either choose a suit with a built-in jet pack for him or pay for a jet pack as one of his custom suit's options.

In Sly Spy, some enemies fly in on jetpack, and when killed will sometimes drop theirs for you to use.

Kerbal Space Program gives its astronauts a Manned Manoeuvring Unit similar to the Real Life example below. On Kerbin it does next to nothing, but on some lower-gravity bodies it's possible to achieve orbit with them.

Shadow the Hedgehog also has rocket shoes, but the only time he's ever used them to hover is in the second Dark Story cutscene of Sonic Adventure 2. Most of the time, he uses them like a pair of roller skates.

In certain levels of MDK 2, Max makes use of a jetpack with limited fuel.

Space Engineers has every character equipped with a small rocket pack for maneuvering in zero-gravity. The jetpack is fairly realistic affair, with multiple jets on both their front and back for movement in all three directions, and is aligned with the character's center-of-mass.

The Trolls also make use of the jetpack's code to craft some variations on it. Vriska makes a pair of rocket boots, Gamzee now rides a rocket-powered unicycle, Tavros replaces his wheelchair with a rocket car, and Terezi uses a jetpack/dragon wing combo.

Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A standard piece of equipment for Wile E. Coyote and Sylvester the Cat in their never-ending quest to chase the Road Runner, Tweety Bird and – sometimes, for Sylvester – Speedy Gonzales. Never worked.

Kim Possible: Often used by Kim and sidekick Ron. Shego uses a bigger rocket pack at one point. And Dr. Drakken once used one to escape Kim and forgot that he was indoors. He embedded himself head-first in the ceiling.

Jonny Quest TOS. The protagonists use them in "The Invisible Monster" and "Turu The Terrible".

In Transformers Animated, Bumblebee has to get a volatile compound into the atmosphere real quick. His solution: Bulkhead throws him and Prowl, Prowl throws him, and by then he is high enough up that he uses his turbo boosters as a form of jetpack. Prowl himself has a jetpack that lets him fly short distances.

Sari gets a scooter that can transform into one after her Plot-Relevant Age-Up. She, her Dad and Ratchet build one (in pretty good time) for Optimus during the Grand Finale.

Sideswipe also had one in G1, but only in the fluff (though a later toy would finally reproduce it in plastic form). Optimus Prime borrows it to reach the Decepticon ship at the end of the three-part pilot miniseries 'More Than Meets The Eye'.

In Exo Squad, James Burns and the Venus Resistance make extensive use of jetpacks.

G.I. Joe makes a lot of use of these as well, particularly in the opening of the first mini-series, and even more spectacularly in the opening of the animated movie. Cobra has their own version in the C.L.A.W., which is essentially a jet pack with wings.

"The Pirates": The title characters use them after their vehicles are destroyed.

A sketch from Robot Chicken has a scientist complain that he's sick of people asking him all the time, "It's the future now, where's my jetpack?" They gave up on it and just decided to keep making iPods smaller.

On The Venture Bros., 21 tries to get 24 to become full-fledged archvillains with him, using stolen jet packs as their motif - 24 burns his shoes with his, and 21 is too heavy to fly more than a foot off the ground.

"The Purple Moss". At the end the villains escape their ship by donning jet packs and flying away. Unfortunately they're too high in the atmosphere and end up going into orbit around the Earth.

"Wings of FEAR". Several FEAR mooks fly using a combination of wings and a jet pack. They use them to kidnap people by swooping down, grabbing them and flying away.

Rocket Robin Hood. Robin and his Merry Men sometimes used jet packs to fly through space.

Fantastic Voyage. The protagonists had jet packs that they could use to fly around, as in the episodes "The Menace from Space", "The Atomic Invaders" and "The Master Spy".

Real Life

The primary reason why this trope has not become reality is not impossibility but impracticality; you can make a jet pack, but humans are not aerodynamic, jet packs are terribly fuel inefficient, and flying is dangerous enough in a plane. Thus it is unlikely that jet packs per the popular imagination will ever be a common form of transportation on Earth. There's also the Toasted Buns issue: the classic jetpack would incinerate your butt with the jets of flame, and inflict severe burns on your shoulders and/or back (because the engines themselves are hot). Even the compressed air and high-pressure water variants have the danger that if the tanks experience catastrophic failure, the explosive result is the same as having a bomb strapped to your body would have been - and they don't allow for much control or safe travel distance.

Contrary to popular belief, the original military projects experimenting with jetpacks were only intended for short jumps. The idea was to allow soldiers to quickly leap across a river or bounce over a minefield, rather than sustained flight. Those designs (when they worked) did avoid most of the practicality issues like Toasted Buns, poor aerodynamics, etc. But other concerns like safety, weight, and especially noise (even modern jetpack engines are unbearably loud) made alternate methods more attractive. So they were still impractical but for different reasons.

The opening ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles included a Bell Rocket Belt (the Thunderball device) flown across the stadium.

Indeed, and there was an actual turbine powered version too, the Bell Flying Jet that was the first true jetpack. Unfortunately, the creator and driving force behind it, Wendell Moore, died while it was still in production, and the program died with him.

Many people spend lots of time/money (attempting a successful run at) making these. A fair number had military funding some decades ago.

The space shuttle astronauts' Manned Maneuvering Unit is kind of like a jetpack, although its thrust levels are so low that it's only useful in Earth orbit. (It would run out of gas after only 25 meters per second of delta-v.)

There was also consideration of giving the Apollo astronauts these for additional mobility on the lunar surface, but this seems to have been shelved when somebody realized how phenomenally dangerous it was going to be to just walk around up there, never mind trying to fly. (Seriously, the regolith is basically composed of very small bits of broken glass, and that's about as good an idea to walk around in wearing something that will cause you to die if it breaks down as it sounds. As it was the suit materials were seriously damaged by the lunar dust that got into them.)

Hydro jet packs and "flyboards", although not self-contained, allow for some impressive stunt maneuvers and can propel much greater loads than any air-jet or rocket-based version.

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